Poor FCAT scores point to more than quick fix

May 16, 2012

In the quest to prep Florida students for competing in a global economy, state officials have relentlessly pushed reforms to boost rigor in K-12 schools. And cautionary notes sounded by educators and parents? So much Chicken Little warbling.

Alas, on Monday, the sky fell — along with scores on the writing portion of this year's FCAT.

For example, 81 percent of fourth-graders who wrote essays based on a writing-prompt notched a minimum passing score of a 4 on the 6-point grading scale last year. The share crashed to 27 percent this year. Eighth- and 10th-graders chalked up similarly poor marks.

An appalling performance that sent the state Board of Education scrambling into an emergency meeting Tuesday to save face. The board slashed the minimum score from 4 to 3. A move that will produce more passing scores and take some of the edge off school officials sweating over how the low marks will color their annual state school grades. But the short-term cosmetic fix doesn't cover up the warts in the state's accountability system.

As Andy Ford, president of the state's largest teachers union, put it: "Children have not suddenly grown less knowledgeable. The problem is in the state-mandated measurement."

Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson largely blames the drop on a communication lapse between state education officials and local school districts. Really? Given the gravity of the test, state officials botched something as fundamental as communicating expectations?

Meanwhile, Robinson insists this year's 3 is equivalent to last year's 4. "Obviously we're not retreating" in rigor, he declared.

Maybe. But the optics certainly look bad. Scaling back looks as if Florida overreached. And the disastrous scores suggest Florida's accountability system is flawed. And that the latest reforms backfired, badly.

Also, the scores gird criticism that Florida's rapid-fire reforms amount to so much flailing. We cautioned last year that "Agitating the pot for agitation's sake can obscure a sound evaluation of what reforms are or aren't working."

Also, the scores further wither parent confidence in public schools. And they act as a new-business repellent. What firm would relocate to a state with an apparently ill-prepared work force?

Robinson says the state is conducting both internal and external audits on the scores. Wise. And so would taking time, as one speaker at Tuesday's meeting noted, to "make sure we're making the right decisions, in the right way, in the right period of time."